NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Going under the knife can take a huge leap of faith. What if the feature you want changed turns out worse than before surgeons started? Thanks to a new 3D facial feature, you may be able to avoid that stress. With detailed 3D models, patients can get a preview of cosmetic procedures before going through with the surgery. “If I didn’t have this 3D print, I would not have underwent surgery,” patient Emily Gorge told CBS2’s Dr. Max Gomez. A preview of Gorge’s procedure was created by a three-dimensional printer, “Mirror Me 3D.” She said it’s a perfect likeness, only better, because it shows what she’d look like with a smaller nose. “I could hold the print up to my face and have such a more realistic idea of what I would look like,” she said. With as many as a third of all plastic surgery patients unhappy with their results, the new technology can give patients more realistic expectations. “Particularly with the face, where there is so much anxiety and stress around changes,” Dr. Oren Tepper explained. It starts with a photograph that gets transformed into a hologram and results in a 3D model made out of plastic-like material called gypsum. “It helps both the patient and the doctor,” Dr. Tepper told CBS2. Dr. Tepper, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon with Montefiore Health System, said a hologram used to create the 3D model for the pre-op consultation can also be projected onto the patient’s body during surgery using different colors to help doctors be more precise. “So you can see a topographical map of what we want to achieve,” he said. And this isn’t just for cosmetic surgery, but also reconstructive surgeries, like that of 9-year-old Jonathan Bridgnanan who lost an eye to cancer. “I looked in the mirror and I saw how I get my eye back,” Jonathan said. The new technology helped Dr. Tepper rebuild the child’s face and helped Jonathan understand that the damage was only temporary. The 3D prints, which start at $60 and run up to $300, are even being purchased by people who don’t want even want plastic surgery and just think it’s a great piece of art source
